As Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it was the responsibility of Hilary Benn to respond to the threat to UK cattle from Mycobacterium bovis, colloquially referred to as Bovine Tuberculosis (TB). The recommended option from the Chief Scientific Advisor until 2007, Sir David King, was a badger cull.[4]

In July 2008, in a House of Commons debate after Hilary Benn had made clear that a badger cull would not be pursued[citation needed], Anne Snelgrove (Labour) asked:

Was one of the practicalities that he envisaged that, in constituencies such as mine, with a densely populated centre surrounded by great swathes of countryside, it would be very difficult to undertake a cull and persuade people in the densely populated centre that that was the right thing to do?[5]

Benn replied:

That was one factor that I was bound to take into account in reaching my decision, because there are strong views on all sides and public opinion can have an impact on the practicality of a cull. It was entirely legitimate for that to be one of the factors that I weighed up in my mind, but above all the decision has been taken as a result of the science.[5]

In April 2010, a badger cull was announced in Wales, after the high court in Cardiff rejected a legal challenge from The Badger Trust.[citation needed]

Relating to the huge amounts of food wasted (according to WRAP 33% of all food produced), Hilary Benn launched the "War on Waste" programme to reduce this amount.[6] Whilst Benn proposed to scrap the "best before" date altogether, others proposed enhancing the validity date with other solutions such as time temperature indicators.

In 2008, Benn was criticised by residents of the village Walberswick and the Conservative Party environment spokesman, after the sea wall by the Benn family home was restored by the Environment Agency, yet the sea harbour at nearby Southwold and Walberswick was abandoned.[7]

Hilary Benn was picked out by several national newspapers as one of only three senior members of the Labour Party to have presented expenses beyond reproach. "When all Westminster MPs' total expenditures are ranked, Benn's bill is the 15th least expensive for the taxpayer," said The Guardian.[13]

In 1973, whilst at university, he married fellow student Rosalind Retey, who died of cancer at age 26 in 1979;[14] Benn subsequently married Sally Christina Clark in 1982.[15] He has four children.[citation needed]

Benn strongly resembles his father, Tony Benn, in his speaking style and delivery, but is a political centrist and was a New Labour loyalist. It is in this vein that he famously describes himself as "a Benn, but not a Bennite".[16] Like his father, he is a teetotaller and a vegetarian.[17]